Friday, May 28, 2010

Booth babes and stolen accounts

I tanked for a bit last night for the first time in a while. I had picked up some tanking upgrades, but as I rarely tank, they were sitting in my bags ungemmed and unenchanted. Fail bear. I think I'd like to tank more, but we are always so short on healz.

Two quick tidbits from the gaming world I found interesting.

First, I don't think I realized that PAX had a no booth babe policy for their festivals. The organizers of PAX are soliciting feedback around this rule via a survey, asking:

It's well known that PAX has always had a "no booth babe" policy for the show. Our definition of a "booth babe" has been a model (male or female) that has been hired to stand/sit in skimpy clothing to market the product. If that person knows the product inside and out then it's less of an issue. A company representative that can interact with attendees in a way that provides value as opposed to "hey stare at my body" is something that we encourage whether or not that representative is physically attractive or not.

As the show has grown, we've noticed certain exhibitors walking the line on this rule. Before we put the hammer down, we want to make sure we're representing your interests. Over the past few years, I've heard both sides plead with me to change/enforce it one way or the other, so I thought it would be helpful to actually hear from the community on this.

It's interesting that they talk about wanting to keep a focus on the content, yet they're not completely banning "booth babes". So is a woman in a bikini ok if she can talk about the product? Is it really "less of an issue"? I've never been to Blizzcon, but is it an issue there?

Secondly, I came across this sad, sad article from Symantec that found a server hosting the credentials of 44 million stolen gaming accounts, including 210,000 WoW accounts. These WoW accounts were listed as having a requested value range of $35-$28,000. $28,000?!?! Are you freakin' kidding me?

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On a more serious note, Paradamaricodise, if you are reading this, your toons were logged into last night, with Para in Hellfire Peninsula most of last night. I am wondering if your account was either hacked or sold.

3 comments:

  1. Blizzard hires a handful of women (and maybe some men?) to walk around in costume, but it's not really excessive. I think I've seen like...maybe less than 10 total. Generally they are BE or NE women. The place is so packed that you barely notice them, and often only notice them much on the second day after the costume contest is over and people are no longer in costume.

    I don't know how I really feel about it. It is 100% marketing to a stereotype of a gamer, in my opinion. I know that myself, as a consumer, isn't going to purchase something because a busty blonde is trying to sell it to me. Now, if we got a few chip n' dale type men along with those women...

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  2. What about a saleswoman who gets a percentage of profits and on her own decides to dress a bit skimpier to attract attention and drive a few more sales? She's not a 'booth babe' of the sort that could be replaced with a few posters, but she's clearly moving beyond being a sensibly-dressed and knowledgeable representative. Maybe the rule could be that attire must either be professional or directly related to the game. Of course that would just encourage every game to stick a half-naked women in somewhere as a loophole.

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  3. Re: para

    Yep, I was on real early the other morning and saw him in Hellfire Ramparts. About 10 seconds after i whispered him, he logged. Phishy.

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